1. Field of the Invention
This invention generally relates to a label material, for example, a material for making price tag labels or anti-theft labels which are placed on products at a store. The label material can have a first substrate on which information can be printed, which first substrate can be attached to a removable carrier sheet by means of a laminated material having an adhesive action. At least the side of the carrier sheet facing the laminated material can be coated with silicon to allow for relatively easy removal of the label from the carrier sheet prior to affixing the label to the product. The present invention also relates to a process for manufacturing the label.
2. Background Information
Label materials having the basic components as outlined above are generally known. In the most common form of label, the laminated material which exerts the adhesive effect generally consists of a simple layer of adhesive deposited on a printable recording medium, such as a paper. If such labels are removed from labelled products such as glass or porcelain products, for example, which products can typically exert a stronger adhesive force on the adhesive layer than does the recording medium, an adhesive residue can be left behind on the products. To eliminate the adhesive residue, attempts were initially made to use a laminated material consisting of two layers of adhesive. The first adhesive layer, or the layer in contact with the recording medium, was made from an adhesive with a very strong adhesive force, while the second adhesive layer facing the carrier sheet, or the product to be labelled, had only a weaker adhesive force. This second adhesive layer was generally weakened by adding a softener to the adhesive.
The use of such a double layer of adhesive initially had the positive effect that the labels adhered well to the labelled products, while still being removable from the labelled products without leaving adhesive residues behind. Over time, however, the softener within the second layer of adhesive tends to penetrate into the first layer of adhesive, i.e. the one which originally had the stronger adhesive force, so that this first layer of adhesive would lose its adhesive effect, and when the tag was removed, it was conceivable to find that more of the double layer of adhesive was left behind on the product than was on the labels when the labels were pulled off.